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Hi friends,
I gave my CWSP exam today and passed it with 81% :D .I have listed in detail my preparations for CWSP.

For everyone i highly recommend that you buy the official study guide and exam voucher from the cwnp store.I got my CWSP and CWAP official Study guide and practice test for $189. Quite a steal considering that i live in India.I suggest you subscribe to their newsletter and you will be informed about the discount offers which they come up with from time to time.I placed the order on 1st Decmber 2006 and got the book delivered by 7th.I could study only two hours a day as my working hours and the time to commute to work added upto 14 hours.I used to study for 4-5 hours on weekend.I work for a networking company as a technical Sales Executive offering Remote Infrastructure Management Services.The lab i could afford consisted of two Desktops, one laptop and two access points.Could not do much with that though.

These are the Books i referred :

1.CWSP official Study Guide.(No substitute for this guys)
2.wi-foo secrets of wireless hacking by Andrew Vladimirov (Has a lot of good info and makes a very good reading).

Forums i Visited for queries:

1.CWNP Forums
2.www.techexams.net

Here are some web articles i referred which might be of use to you guys:

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Challenge-response_authentication
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S/Key
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerberos_(protocol)
4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightweight_Directory_Access_Protocol
5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wired_Equivalent_Privacy
6. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wi-Fi_Protected_Access
7. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensible_Authentication_Protocol
8. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightweight_Directory_Access_Protocol
9. http://www.windowsecurity.com/whitepapers/Wireless-Security-Attacks- Defenses.html

Study method:

I went through the objectives of the exam first,made a note of the weightages given to the objectives and categorised the chapters in the book according to the objectives.I didvided the chapters in the book into 4 categories:

1.WLAN Security: Chapters 10-16
2.WLAN detection and attacks: chapters 1-4
3.WLAN monitoring: chapters 17 and 18.
4.Security policies:Chapters 5-9.

I started with the WLAN Security (10-16 chapters)followed by WLAN monitoring 17 & 18 WLAN detection and attacks(chapter 1- 4) and finally Security policies.I maintained a notes in paragraph questions and answer format.After finishing every chapter i answered the review questions at the end of every chapter. I revised all the chpters once again and this time made a note of important points in a different book which could be used for last minute study .It took me exactly 100 days to do this and i am sure that you guys can do it much faster.

After i had finished reading about half the book i tried a practice exam and scored only 48% :( .So i thought it would be better to finish the book once and then try the practice exam,in that attempt i got 72%.I gave the practice exam once again after i finished revising and got 80%.Friends the real exam questions are easier than the practice questions.I did a quick
revision by referring to the web articles mentioned above and gave the practice exam once again one day before the exam and got 90%.

A word or two about the official Study guide:

It makes for a very intresting reading and gives a lot of information about a variety of topics and is very well written.But Grant ,Tom and Richard is it possible to have the boring security policy chapters(5-9) at the end of the book,rather than in the middle as they slow down the pace of reading.It would be better if these chapters are in the end.Ofcourse this is just a suggestion of mine to make the book better.A big THANK YOU for you guys for a well written book.

Special thanks to Kevin from the cwnp program(He is the CEO) 8-O who helped me a lot,he is turning out to be my lucky mascot.Thanks to ShRaDha and Dippy for your words of encouragement and support and last but not the least Thank u very much guys for all ur help.I plan to move on to the next level CWNE in about a years time.

mascot? hmmmm....not sure how I should take that, but congratulations many times over, and than you very much for sharing your prep method and opinion on the materials and the overall CWSP experience.

Well done.